Local political organization and transregional entanglements of street commerce in Mexico City

This article examines the economic and political processes that enable "economic globalization from below". In the so-called "internationalized informal economy", street vendors resort to forms of economic and political organization in order to sell legal, smuggled or "pirated" products on the streets of the centers of large cities. From a political perspective, this paper explores how street vendors collectively resort to various organizations linked formally or informally through corporatist or clientelist relations with the political system and political parties in order to negotiate their interests with the authorities and established merchants. From an economic perspective, it discusses how they have developed sui generis organizations in order to bring products from China to the historic center of Mexico City.